Enter your email to subscribe:

Courtesy of Legal Ethics Forum comes breaking news that the District Court has vacated the sanctions order in the Qualcomm case because the "introduction of accusatory adversity between Qualcomm and its retained counsel regarding the issue of assessing responsibility for the failure of discovery changes the factual basis which supported the court's earlier order denying the self-defense exception to Qualcomm's attorney client privilege." The "attorneys have a due process right to defend themselves...where their alleged conduct regarding discovery is in conflict with that alleged by Qualcomm concerning performance of discovery obligations." Now it will really get interesting as the formerly sanctioned and bar-referred attorneys can fully respond to the discovery misconduct issues. Of course, the bar will have no choice but to await the outcome of the remand, but will greatly benefit from the defenses/explanations of the six attorneys who were referred for a bar investigation. (Mike Frisch)